Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – The 54 Union ministries and 93 departments under their jurisdictions in New Delhi have a total of 11,131 officials from the secretary level downwards. Of these 178 are Muslims.
This is history’s lowest-ever representation of Muslims in the Union governance levels.
India has the world’s third-largest Muslim population, about 14.2 percent of the total population as per the last census held in 2011.
Their cultural and religious identity have been getting shredded since 2014 and the community has been fighting an increasingly open hate and discrimination agenda. Life for the 200 million-strong community has remained in a whirlpool of front-paged discrimination in every socio-economic domain. No Muslim representation has existed in the Union Cabinet since July 2022, a first in history.
There are no Muslims among the 52 officials at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), a first in history since this office was set up in 1977. Earlier, the PMO was considered a part of the government in 1961 by the allocation of business rules. PMO was originally set up as the Prime Minister’s Secretariat (PMS) in 1947.
In the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, there are five Muslims among 710 officials, including one at the under-secretary level, two at the additional secretary level, and one deputy commissioner. Of the four Muslim officials at AYUSH, one is an under-secretary. At the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, one is an under-secretary. One of the two Muslim officials at the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s 94 staff is a joint secretary, a woman.
This story was originally published in clarionindia.net. Read the full story here.